Interviews

Q&A WITH DANI GIMÉNEZ

06 Apr 2020La Voz de Galicia had an interview with Dani Giménez. The goalkeeper talked of how la liga is planning to end the current season and his experiences with the self-isolation.

Q: It seems to be going long.A: I estimate that, being optimistic, we could start competing in late May or early June. That being optimistic. And, from what I know out there, La Liga and the clubs are every day less optimistic.

Q: Pombo has said that for a minimum pre-season you will need 20 daysA: There won't be 20 days. The AFE understands that it’s the minimum, because if not then there will be many injuries. Matches of great tension remain.

Q: You talk of May-June, but many events scheduled for later months have already been canceled.A: Yes, it looks bad. As of today, the problem I see is that you can start in mid-June, but how do you ensure that a team is not infected? You have to stop again. It wouldn't be fair for a team to be left without six or seven players. The League says that if it happens, then let the rest can play. Yeah, but that's not fair.

Q: You don’t sound very optimistic.A: It is not that, it’s that every day the situation changes. I am not optimistic in the sense of stopping infections or that teams such as Mirandés or Ponferradina, who are newly promoted, can compete in the same way. We have eight football fields and we travel on charter flights. They go on commercial planes when they can, if not, by bus. Or about the tests, for example. We are going to do them every day. Are they 100% reliable? What if there is someone who passes the test in the morning, is infected in the afternoon and has infected four other players before the next day's test?

Q: These are all uncertainties.A: It's complicated. Now I was reading about the ERTES (Temporary Employment Regulation File). People don't know what it is. How is the State going to pay 30% of a player's salary? It’s a lie.

Q: We are talking about agreed discounts then.A: Clearly. I have been watching and I understand many players who say that they don’t see logical that half of the losses have be to be covered by the players when in the end they are workers. I think that you have to be flexible, but the clubs will also have to touch the budgets and if next year you have to have fewer millions, that is not at the expense of the players.

Q: Do you feel used?A: There is everything. I don’t think so. But I have always believed that if the workers were united, we would be much more protected from everything. Obviously, we are privileged. But things have to be done well. Because a club presents to you their losses, you don’t have to assume them. You will assume a part because we are all going through a very big health and economic crisis. We have to negotiate so that we can all benefit more or less. I don’t see logical that 50% of the losses fall on the players. And I do not see logical that ERTES appear. At what point are we that a football team cannot go a month or two without carrying out its activity? We are talking about Primera and Segunda teams. It cannot be that teams cannot survive a month or two due to this uncertainty.

Q: I see that you are well informed, are you afraid of it?A: I'm speaking in general, At Depor we have a very good harmony. It's true. We talked to the club a little bit about this during the week. But there are still no events and it’s true that what the League and an ERTE want are very similar. In the ERTE figure, if we take and collect 30% of the three payrolls that we have left, you lose a percentage very similar to that 20% that the League offers. It is very similar, but it isn’t the same. Really, what you do is forgive that money. So, you have to know what each thing means. What if a player doesn't want to stick to that? Would he be fired? I don't think they can force us to be in one company and be able to go to another.

Come on, each case is unique.A: These are situations that, as much as there are conversations, each contract is individual. I can reach an agreement with the other captains at Depor, but what if there is a player who doesn't want to? It is your right to claim through the courts. We know that you have to be together, but I understand those who defend that if the League ends, you have to charge everything, but not those who say that if you have to play one or two extra months you have to charge more. These are opinions for all tastes. I also think that if the competition doesn’t resume, the player has to wink at the club and try to help. I am in favor of the agreement.

Q: Are you in contact with Fernando Vázquez or someone else from the club?A: Yes, both Fernando and Richard Barral have called us to see how we are and if we need anything. And nothing more. With Richard I talked a little more on the subject of how the club is, but in the end, as things are going a little slower and with so much uncertainty, starting to come up with solutions based on hypotheses is not a good thing. You have to wait to see what happens and have things more or less talked about it. With ease. Little more. To hold on and think that we have enough weeks before playing again.

Are you pending of the news?A: Many networks and many programs are all day talking about the coronavirus. It is good to know how it evolves, but you have to know if everything that is said is true. Not because it is a lie, but because many times you don't know enough. You have to listen and know in the world you live, but you have to escape a little and not be aware of it all day long.

With whom you are passing the isolation?A: With my wife and my two little dogs.

Q: Something will come out thenA: My dogs are very homemade, I don't go down to the street much for that reason either. Around the block at most and they already want to go back.

Q: There have been unpleasant scenes with people insulting another from the windows.A: I think people are handling confinement quite well, but there is of everything. In the end it lacks a little education because it is the first time we have passed through this. If it happened every five or six years, everything would be more normal, and we would be less tense. There is always talk of picaresque Spanish, like those people who are going to buy four streets further than they have to. If you are in the house and you see it every day, it is normal that you get angry. But people have to know what the law is. What is allowed and what is not. And if you don't like the law, you know, the following elections you vote for those who make the laws you like, but until then trying to respect.

Q: And how do you see the politicians?A: I think the level isn't being so bad for what politics really is in Spain. They tend to be much more tense although perhaps it is true that perhaps it has worsened in recent days by restricting economic activities to the essentials. Nothing surprising. These are normal things. Perhaps the opposition, more than to get political revenue, does so by feeling important in decision-making. I think that in almost any country these things would happen.